


The Brave and the Bold

by lusilly



Series: Earth-28 [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Bonding, Cute Kids, Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Damian’s first mission with Lian Harper, she joins him for a night of patrol in Gotham. But when they accidentally tread into Red Hood’s territory, things take a surprising turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Brave and the Bold

**Author's Note:**

> Earth-28 canon but can be read standalone. Connected to Rise of Arsenal, Restoration and vaguely to Fiat iusticia (via the Mysterious Cuffs - technically that makes it also related to wheel in the sky). also directly related to of tea, biscuits, and misplaced orange juice. beginning of Best Brothers Damian-and-Jason, as well as Platonic Life Partners Damian+Lian, as well as First Loves Damian and Iris. enjoy.

           Bruce Wayne sat across from his son in the living room, leaning forward, hands clasped together in utter bewilderment.

            Outside the windows, the Manor’s grounds were blanketed in a thick, pristine layer of snow. For the past few weeks Damian had been talking about gardening, especially about planting a new vegetable garden out just past the little copse of cherry trees. Although Bruce had promised to help him as soon as spring came, for the time being they were shut inside, and he could tell his son did not like it. Damian was suited much more to warmth and heat, even the wet humidity of Gotham’s summers, which Bruce had for many years found completely unbearable, especially before he perfected the cooling system in the Batsuit. Where the cold agreed with Bruce, it made his son restless and crabby.

            Not only that, but they were only about a month in to Damian’s new medication, designed to treat his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Well, two months, really: the first dosage had caused him to become so nauseous he could barely keep any food down and so wired he could hardly sleep, which had almost resulted in a complete meltdown when Damian refused to go back to the doctor. To be honest Bruce thought it his fault, as he had mentioned to Doctor Thompkins that Talia had keyed some slight invulnerability into Damian’s biology, which meant that in general he required a larger dosage of medication than his size would suggest. This much was in fact true – Bruce had done an in-depth mapping of Damian’s genetic code and pinpointed the places where Talia had intervened, and when it came to medical treatment in the Cave he and Alfred had found that Damian needed almost as high of a sedative dosage as Dick did in order to keep him out for any extended length of time.

            So for these reasons, Bruce was not entirely surprised that Damian was acting out. But he was surprised at the stark difference between “acting out” a few months ago, when Damian had come back to the Cave spitting with violence and fury, and “acting out” today, which involved – well, Facebook.

            Barbara had alerted Bruce earlier that same day. In the Cave he’d been intending to work on the next case, something that was unusual in that he uncovered it in the daytime, not in his nightly work . But Bruce had been distracted by the proposal Roy Harper had sent him, something that Damian himself had been floating for the past few months. It only began to take real form after things calmed down with Damian and he got himself under control, but hearing from Red Arrow had changed it somehow, turned it from something Damian was interested in into something that took actual form and purpose. Bruce flicked through the names Red Arrow had suggested. Only six, but Bruce had gone on to send a message to Clark asking if this is something Chris would be interested in (he had not yet heard back), and had also tentatively added Buddy Baker’s daughter onto the list. He was not surprised that Red Arrow wasn’t aware of the girl’s massive power, but thought this a good opportunity to get a reading on her abilities.

            That was when Barbara called him. The screen lit up green, and Bruce answered immediately. “What do you have for me, Barbara?”

            From the screen before him, Oracle herself peered down at him through yellow-tinted glasses. “This isn’t about work, Bruce,” she answered. “I’m actually calling about your son.”

            Bruce could’ve rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you before, I will not get involved where you and Dick are-”

            Her tone was scathing. “Not Dick. The other one.”

            Since there were more than two, Bruce paused for just a second. Then he asked, “Would you like me to guess again, or…?”

            She could have just told him outright, but it was very like Barbara to play this quick game with him. Bruce was not sure he minded. He and Barbara worked together more and more exclusively as time went on, and talking to her was just as easy – if not easier – than it had been with the rest of his family. “I’m talking about the current Boy Wonder,” she told him. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen his internet history of late, have you?”

            No, Bruce hadn’t. But he could imagine what it might look like. “Well,” he began fairly, “he’s a growing boy, Barbara, what do you expect-”

            “I’m not talking about  _that_ ,” she sneered at him, and then her face disappeared, replaced by a page on a popular social networking site. “I’m talking about  _this_.”

            Bruce frowned, blinked, and leaned in towards the screen.

            Concerned, he had promised Barbara he would deal with the problem and abandoned the mostly-dark Cave, heading back up into the house to find his son. And this was how he had come to sit before his son in the living room, where Damian was sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the couch, his laptop computer on the small coffee table before them.

            With genuine venom in his voice, Damian said, “My apologies. I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to have  _friends_.”

            This was already far more than Bruce had expected to get himself into. “I didn’t say that,” he began, but Damian only gave a vicious roll of his eyes punctuated by an angry click on his computer.

            “You just did,” he pointed out, and Bruce was afraid that his son may actually have a point. “You just told me not to add people as friends on Facebook.”

            “I didn’t mean everyone,” answered Bruce. “Dick and Tim are fine. And me, of course.”

            “I’m not adding my  _father_ on Facebook.”

            Bruce thought that fair enough, but also refrained from adding that his own Facebook account was actually run by the Wayne Enterprises communications department, and used almost exclusively to post information about various philanthropic projects.

            Damian continued, “So you’re telling me that I am allowed to have friends – as long as they’re within the family?”

             _No_ , Bruce wanted to say.  _Please don’t add your mother_.

            Instead, Bruce held out his palms in a gesture that he hoped Damian would interpret as a plea. “Of course not,” he said. “What about your friend – the red-haired boy?”

            “Abuse,” said Damian sourly. Bruce had known this was the boy’s alter ego, but so hated the name that he categorically refused to use it. And also he could never remember the boy’s real name. Wasn’t it something like Daniel? Nell? No, no, that was the girl, the one Stephanie had taken a liking too. “Colin doesn’t own a computer.” Colin! That was it. “And if I need to speak with him, he has the direct line to my commlink.”

            Bruce’s first instinct was to offer to buy Colin a computer, but he assumed that Damian had already offered to do so and also he did not think that was at the root of the problem here. “What’s the problem with that?” asked Bruce. “I will happily send your direct line to Red Arrow to pass along to his daughter, so that we can avoid these social media missteps.”

            With a hard expression in his eye, Damian emphatically turned his laptop around so Bruce could look at the screen. Leaning over it, Damian pointed at the number of friends on his Facebook page. “I’m a celebrity,” he said. “I accept friend requests from everyone, I already have fifteen hundred friends, and I don’t use it for anything except when Tim tells me to post something.”

            This impressed Bruce. “You talk to Tim?”

            The boy looked simultaneously bored, disappointed, and righteously angry. Turning his computer around once more, he grunted, “That’s not the point.”

            “Damian,” began Bruce. After a quick calculation of how badly he wanted to be listened to, he slipped off his seat to sit on the carpet across the coffee table from Damian, eye level with the boy. “Listen to me. I’m not asking you as your father, I’m asking you as Batman.”

            Another grunt from Damian. This time he sounded bitterly amused. “As if you ever aren’t.”

            Not quite sure what his son meant by this, Bruce continued, “No civilian connections to anyone else. You know this. No public contact out of uniform.”

            “My privacy settings,” Damian said exasperatedly, “are airtight. You and maybe Oracle are the only people on Earth who would’ve even noticed it at all.”

            Almost true: if Barbara had not alerted Bruce, there was no way he would have known.

            “I’m sorry,” said Bruce, “but I am going to have to insist. Either you remove Lian Harper from your friends list, or I will deactivate your Facebook account.”

            For a moment, Damian said nothing, staring at his father blankly. As if startled back into focus, he shook his head, glanced around almost suspiciously, and then narrowed his eyes at his father. “Is this a  _joke?_ ”

            “I am being entirely serious, son.”

            Disgusted, Damian glanced at his father, then at his screen, then clicked a few buttons. Then he slammed his laptop shut. “Thank you,” he said, “for ruining whatever chance I may ever have at a normal social life.”

            The boy got to his feet. “Damian,” begun Bruce, patiently. Damian picked up his laptop, ignoring his father. “Damian, please. In any case isn’t it better to be in direct contact with her, instead of relying on some social networking site?”

            Damian stopped to turn around, the low smolder of anger burning in his eyes. “Are you asking me if it isn’t better to communicate with my new friend, who is a thirteen-year-old girl in the eighth grade, by the way, via an encrypted communications link which I wear almost exclusively as part of my uniform on patrol?”

            Bruce looked at him. Damian paused so long that Bruce realized this was an actual question which required an answer. “Yes,” he said, trying not to sound guilty (even though, honestly, he didn’t quite understand what Damian thought was so unreasonable about the question).

            Outside, a snow drift slid off the roof, falling with a muted  _thump_  onto the white-blanketed patio. Damian shook his head. “No, Father,” he said simply, as if he were talking to a child. It was the same tone of voice he tended to reserve for Tim. “It isn’t better.”

            Damian left the room. Bruce was left sitting uncomfortably on the carpeted floor, knowing that as far as father-son interactions went, he would not quite call this one a success.

—-

            “Oh my  _God_ ,” said Damian, already in uniform apart from the mask. He lowered his face into his hands dramatically. “I didn’t want you to arrange a  _playdate_.”

            “It’s not a playdate,” Bruce replied.

            It was absolutely a playdate. For the past few days Damian had been even sulkier than usual due to the fact that Bruce had had him remove Lian Harper from his Facebook friends, and he had no other real way of keeping up with her. The two children had, of course, met each other a few months earlier when they both independently undertook an operation to shut down a human trafficking ring. Completely without the permission or knowledge of their parents, both their plans unintentionally sabotaged the others’, and they were forced to work together. In the end it had worked out, but it took a toll on both Damian and Lian, and had forged the beginning of an awkward new relationship between Bruce and Roy, the parental my-child-knows-your-child understanding which was entirely unfamiliar to Bruce. Roy had done his best to gently coach the man through it.

            Seeing how despondent Damian had been after losing Lian as a Facebook friend, Bruce had reached out to Roy to see if they could try and repair the damage. Lian had recently made her debut as Arsenal (why she’d skipped Speedy and gone straight to Arsenal, Bruce did not know), and Roy had agreed that maybe it would be good for her superheroing skills if she got out of their little Star City bubble, a city whose crime seemed stuck somewhere in the harmless boxing-glove-arrow era of heroes long outgrown. “She’d love a chance to kick some ass in Gotham,” Roy had agreed. “That’d give her some serious bragging rights with the rest of the fam. Plus, Bat and Arrow team-ups are practically a tradition at this point.

            Personally Bruce thought it would be more poignant if Lian were Speedy, because there had been plenty of Robin-Speedy team-ups but never a Robin-Arsenal one to his knowledge, but he didn’t comment on this. He may never quite understand the Arrow family, but he had to remind himself constantly that he respected them.

            Thus, Lian was to arrive in Gotham within the hour. Bruce had added a sizable length to Damian’s usual patrol route, and together he and Lian were to have a team-up. Maybe it was a little less natural than team-ups otherwise tended to be, but Bruce didn’t think Damian would mind the lack of spontaneity.

            Bruce was incorrect. “She’s an  _amateur_ ,” said Damian, shaking his head. “She’s been in uniform, what, a few weeks?”

            “Two months,” answered Bruce. “And if I recall correctly, weren’t you the one going on and on about what a capable partner she made?”

            Quickly – too quickly – Damian said, “She’s not my  _partner_.”

            Bruce took pause at this. Tearing his eyes away from the computer screen, he turned around in his seat to look back at his son, who refused to meet his gaze. There might have been a hint of a blush on his dark cheeks.

            This, Bruce had not anticipated. In retrospect, however, he supposed it made a lot of sense.

            He turned back to the screen. “Arsenal will meet you just past the docks on Second and you’ll be heading northwest until you get to Robinson Park.”

            Unwilling or unable to acknowledge the flush of color in his face, Damian moved forward to scrutinize the screen. “That’s edging into Red Hood’s territory.”

            “He’s been alerted.”

            “He doesn’t take kindly to visitors.”

            “If he gives you trouble, remind him that I sent you.”

            Damian considered this for a moment. “Fine,” he said, heading away to fetch his mask. “But if I get shot again, that’s your fault.”

             _Again_. Damian still blamed Jason Todd for an incident back when Bruce was away, during which a villain called the Flamingo had riddled Damian so full of bullets that his mother replaced his entire spine. He still had a long pale scar down the length of his back, which was why Bruce had expressly forbidden Damian to ever attend any pool parties, or any public event in which he might take off his shirt. Scars like that were far too recognizable, and would not easily be covered up with makeup.

            This moratorium had not lasted long. Despite the fact that Damian had no pool parties of any sort to attend, he had taken issue at being so strictly demanded to conform to rules he had no intention of breaking, and so had consulted with Alfred to strike a deal. After a weekend of heated discussion and negotiation, Bruce had agreed to lift the rule as long as they could forge medical records of a spinal surgery involved enough to explain the scar. Damian had been very smug afterwards. Bruce could not truthfully say that he hated seeing his son so proud of himself.

            In any case, Damian did not trust Jason Todd. He didn’t know the man apart from a few bad experiences when Dick was Batman, and whatever he had overheard the rest of his family saying about Jason at the Manor. Overall, Bruce suspected that Damian’s view of Jason was not favorable. Beyond that, he had no clue.

            Damian left not long after that, heading out on his motorcycle. “Are you coming out?” he called, heading down to the garage deck.

            “Later,” answered Bruce. This was untrue. Bruce had recently suffered an extremely painful elbow fracture and was resting up for a few days to let it heal. But he wasn’t about to let his son know that he was subject to such mundane physical vulnerabilities. “Be safe.”

            With just a tad more sarcasm than actual derision, Damian replied, “Aren’t I always?”

            He raced out of the Cave, and into the frozen chill of the Gotham night.

            When Damian arrived at the agreed upon spot, there was no one there. He stopped his motorcycle, slipped off, and glanced around. There was silence and stillness. Amateur. Of course she was late.

            A gentle breeze ran past him, an odd, shivering blast of motion in the iciness of the night. With a frown, he looked out towards the bay. The night was otherwise, uncharacteristically, windless.

            And then with a gentle  _thump_ , a rubber-tipped arrow collided with the sleek side of his bike. It had come with no warning from the darkness, and he had been annoyed and not paying attention: otherwise, he told himself, he would’ve caught it.

            From the roof of the warehouse above him, a girl with a bow in her hands grinned down at him. He rolled his eyes. “Hi Robin,” she called.

            “Be a little louder,” he said in reply. “I’m not sure every criminal in a ten mile radius heard you.”

            Wordlessly, she made her way down to the ground, sliding most of the way down on a drainpipe. A drainpipe which certainly would not have held Damian’s weight. He probably would’ve had to take another three seconds to get all the way down. It surprised him how instantly this injured him, knowing already that there was something at which she was better than him.

            “Pleasure to work with you again, kiddo,” she said, despite the fact that he knew he was five months older than she was. “Although nobody told me Gotham was so damn cold.”

            If Batman were there, he would have rebuked her: they were never allowed to swear on patrol. Thinking that might not win points with her, Damian refrained from doing so. “It might be warmer,” he answered sneeringly, “if you weren’t wearing a miniskirt.”

            “Um, excuse you,” she shot back, tugging at the dark fabric covering her legs, “these are military-grade armored leggings. The miniskirt’s just for aesthetic.”

            “It’s a poor aesthetic.”

            “Because red, yellow, and green is so fashion-forward?”

            Damian had come to fiercely love his Robin uniform, and he found himself oddly upset that she would make fun of it. “Before we begin,” he said, “let me remind you once more about some simple ground rules we have here in Gotham-”

            “No killing, no maiming, no real names, no frightening the locals,” she answered, holding up a finger for each. “Come on, Robin, I’m from Star City. Your dad came up with those rules for  _you_ , not for me.”

            Again, this injured him. He hated how easy it was for her to get under his skin. “Don’t call him my father,” he added. “No one’s supposed to know about that either.”

            “Oh, right,” said Lian, nodding wisely. “Because the big guy can come right out and say he funds Batman, but letting criminals know that he and Robin are father and son? Oh, no, that’s far too risky.”

            “Do you want to do this with me,” demanded Damian, “or not?”

            Lian eyed him for a moment, and for one terrible second Damian was afraid she was going to say, “Not.”

            Then she shrugged. “Didn’t come three thousand miles not to patrol in Gotham, am I right?”

            He didn’t answer this. She claimed that she had been briefed before she set out, but just to be clear he took her to a high rooftop and outlined their route and his method for patrolling the city and apprehending would-be criminals. “Batman is working a case in Midtown,” he instructed her, “part of which we’ll be passing by later tonight. He did not specifically provide instructions but it’s in everyone’s best interests if we do what we can to help his case, so while we’re there I am going to do some detective work. If you can’t keep up, do please try to at least stick close to me.”

            “If Batman specifically told you not to pursue his lead,” she began, arms crossed over her chest, “then don’t you think you should listen to him?”

            Taken aback, Damian met her judgmental gaze, obscured by her red domino mask. “I didn’t say he told me not to-”

            “Yeah, but if he didn’t mention it then that sounds like he wants to take care of it himself. If you start stomping around, you could accidentally destroy important evidence. You should let him check it out by himself.”

            For a moment, Damian could find nothing to say to that. Then a spark of anger flared and he answered, “I wouldn’t  _destroy_  important evidence-”

            “If you’re not intimately familiar with the case files,” she said with finality, bow slung over her shoulder, “you should probably just stay away. Besides, if Batman’s going to be focused on that then we’re going to have to pick up his slack on patrol.”

            This made perfect logical sense, but it also infuriated Damian. “I’ll be in touch with my father,” he told her heatedly. “I’m sure by the time we get to Midtown he’ll ask me to follow up on his leads.”

            “Hey,” said Lian, her expression blunt and unreadable, “don’t call him your father in the field, remember?”

            Then at last she flashed him a grin, and headed towards the edge of the building. “I’ll race you,” she called. Damian glowered at her and considered heading straight home, unable to bear the night with her.

            But then his competitive nature kicked in, and he was pleased to see that, by the time he flung himself off the side of the building, she was just half a second behind him.

            All in all, patrol was not terrible. Lian was by no means as skilled as he was in hand-to-hand but she had excellent weapons training, and some of the gadgets she used were completely foreign to Damian, who as Robin rarely relied on tech to do what his body could do well enough. Additionally everything she used was nonlethal, which explained why he had never been exposed to it in his training with the League of Assassins.

            After a little while, Lian even devised a point system to up the competition even more. “Two points for attempted assault,” she said matter-of-factly. They were standing in the coffee aisle at a 7-11, something Damian would never do on his own but secretly appreciated, because it was so numbingly cold out there. “Three points if the attacker has a firearm, four if it’s automatic although that’s probably unlikely.”

            “Five for attempted homicide,” said Damian, and she made a face.

            “If someone’s got a firearm and is attempting assault,” she began, “then doesn’t it kind of make sense to include that as attempted homicide?”

            Damian considered this. “What about homicide via stabbing? Or strangling? Or any other conceivable method of murder?”

            Measuring Splenda and creamer into her coffee in very precise amounts, Lian replied, “Mm, I think we should limit knife-wielding because obviously that doesn’t pose much of a threat to either of us, what with the reinforced Kevlar.”

            This may be true in the winter time, but Damian’s summer uniform had a weak spot all up the stitching on the sides. Not that he would ever allow anyone to get close enough to stab him, but he was a little indignant. He deserved that extra point.

            “Strangling should be an extra point,” she said, watching him pour sugar but no cream into his own coffee. “Oh, but not if they’re strangling someone else, only if they’re strangling you. It can be  _so_  hard to get out of a chokehold.”

            This was true, but Damian wasn’t about to admit it. “Maybe for you,” he grunted. “I’m much bigger than you, though. Stronger too probably.”

            She laughed, and reached out and – what the  _hell?_  – she patted him on the cheek. “That’s cute,” she said.

            She paid, but also asked him, “Oops, do you have two dollars?” which he did. A few years ago Stephanie had started to insist that he carry money on him in uniform, because she was always buying him tea and hot Cheetos on patrol and, “Seriously, you can afford it so much more than I can, pay up, you little gremlin.”

            On a rooftop, they sat and sipped their coffee. After a minute or so, Lian piped up. “That means I get a handicap,” she said.

            He glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

            “You said it yourself,” she told him, with a shrug. “You’re bigger and stronger than I am. So I get a handicap. If I get out of a chokehold, I get three extra points.”

            Damian thought about this. “Two,” he said.

            “Two it is.” She lifted her paper coffee cup and he gently tapped his own against it. “While we have a second,” she continued, “we should also probably talk about the giant elephant in the general vicinity.”

            Damian said nothing, holding the lid’s warm opening up to his lips. At once he found himself grateful for the darkness, that she could not see his face.

            “Are we doing this, or not?” she asked simply. “Like. For real.”

            He said nothing, breathing in the steam from his sweet black coffee. “I don’t know,” he began cautiously. “Do you want to do this?”

            Did she laugh? “Of course!” she said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. It’s destiny.”

            “I don’t really believe in destiny,” said Damian. “But…I suppose I could make an exception.”

            Taking a gulp of her coffee – which obviously burned her throat, because she made a pained expression and coughed a little – Lian continued, “Oh, don’t give me that. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

            “No,” he answered, truthfully.

            She looked a little surprised. “Yes you have,” she said. “I know you have! Impulse says her cousin says you did.”

            All at once, everything stopped making sense. “What?” he asked.

            Setting aside her coffee, Lian patiently began, “Impulse – you know Impulse, right? Her dad is the Flash? – anyway, her cousin says that you were on the Teen Titans with him for, like, five seconds. That was a few years ago, though.”

            “Oh,” said Damian. “Yes. That was me.” He hesitated, then asked, “You’re talking about the Titans?”

            Before them, a group of teenagers filed into the 7-11, giggling madly. “Yeah!” she said. “My dad’s been getting the Tower ready for like a couple weeks now. There’s nobody using it, why shouldn’t we?”

            “Just us?”

            “I was thinking Impulse and her brother, Green Lantern, my cousin – she’s not really my cousin, but I don’t know if you know her. Black Canary’s daughter?”

            Black Canary, to Damian’s knowledge, did not have a daughter. He asked, “You’re not thinking of Green Arrow’s son, are you?”

            “Connor? No, of course not!” Then she made a face and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oops,” she said. “Sorry. No real names, my bad. No, I’m talking about,” she paused, glanced around, then leaned in towards Damian’s ear and whispered one word.

            Damian blinked at her. “Sin?”

            Instantly she shushed him, putting a finger to her lips. “No real names!”

            He had assumed  _Sin_  was not a real name. “I don’t know who that is,” he said, honestly. “But I will look her up.”

            “I’ll send you the files,” said Lian casually.

            Neither of them would admit it, but it was kind of a power trip to be speaking so professionally with one another, in uniform, about other superhero kids. It made them both feel powerful and important, soon-to-be leaders, founding members of a new iteration of Teen Titans. “Superboy should be on the roster as well,” said Damian.

            “Mh-mh,” responded Lian, shaking her head. “Superboy isn’t Superboy anymore. He and Wonder Girl are off doing something on Paradise Island, I don’t know what. But he’s not using the name anymore.”

            “Not that Superboy,” answered Damian. “Superman’s son.”

            “Superman doesn’t have a son.”

            “I have access to the Batcomputer, and you’re suggesting I don’t know  _everything_ about Superman?”

            “Hey, just a second ago you’d never even heard of my cousin.”

            “That’s because your cousin,” said Damian, “is such an unimportant, irrelevant, utterly harmless entity that she doesn’t even make it onto my radar.”

            Then he realized he hadn’t said that, because that would have been terribly rude and he had been trying for the past few months to control his kneejerk reactions, which tended to be awfully cruel.

            “Anyway,” sighed Lian, after taking a final swig of her coffee, “this superhero business is getting way too in-the-family, anyway, so I don’t blame you for not being able to keep track of everyone.” She got to her feet and smiled at him, but there was a spark of danger in her eye. “Shall we dance?”

            Mirroring the girl before him, Damian too got to his feet. “I’ll dance,” he answered. “You watch, and try to learn something.”

            Again, she laughed at him. It hurt a little bit, but it was also kind of a nice feeling, that he could make her laugh. They set off once more, making good time as they racked up some serious points, calling them out through the cold night at one another every time they successfully took someone down. Damian had to pause to wait a few minutes when they saved a woman who started crying frantically, and Lian held onto her until the police got there. As they headed away, Damian murmured, “That was a bit much.”

            “Not really,” she shot back. “If I was a civilian and I’d just been attacked like that, I’d be crying too.”

            “I didn’t mean her reaction,” he clarified; he paused for just a moment as they climbed up a fire escape, and he helped her up onto the roof. When they were facing one another, he continued, “I meant you.”

            Lian raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never stayed with a victim before?”

            “I have,” he replied, a little indignantly. Moonlight reflected off the snow covering the roof, bathing everything in a stark, artificial whiteness that made Damian uncomfortable. “But I don’t usually let them touch me.”

            She glanced at him. “It’s not really stranger danger if they’re sobbing so hard they can barely see.”

            “That’s not what I mean.”

            “What do you mean?”

            He hesitated. It was true enough that he did not usually let would-be victims cling onto him like Lian did. He had seen Dick do it before, mostly in the Nightwing suit because Batman had a bit of a reputation to keep up. Once or twice he’d even seen Tim do it, on those rare occasions when he agreed to go on patrol in the same general area as Red Robin. But for some reason he had never been able to do it himself. Part of it was the thought of touching someone he didn’t know, the idea of letting someone put their hands on him when he didn’t know who they were – that made him feel dirty, like he had to disinfect his entire body when he got home, even though he would have been protected by his thick uniform. It was also more than that. There was something about that intimacy, about that closeness – something about the proximity such vulnerability – that frightened him. He did not know why.

            When he did not answer for long enough, Lian did not press him. They continued on their patrol, mostly in silence.

            After a while, Damian called, “Arsenal.” She stopped, turning to him expectantly.

            At the edge of the rooftop, he pointed down the street. “Midtown is about three blocks away. I am going to be looking for evidence, so feel free to continue on without me.”

            “How well do you know the area?” She sounded almost bored, and in return he felt almost offended.

            He half-shrugged. “It’s not on my usual patrol route. But I’ll be fine on my own.”

            “Nah,” she said. “I’ll stick with you, Robin.”

           Despite himself, his heart leapt a little bit when she said so. With a curt nod, he said, “As you wish.”

           Damian had never seen  _The Princess Bride_  so he didn’t know exactly why she snickered. All he knew was that, once more, he was pleased to have made her laugh.

           Not only was Midtown not on Damian’s regular patrol route, but it was the part of the city that was unequivocally Red Hood’s territory. Damian had only been there a few times back when Dick had been Batman, and the Red Hood had been in and out of Gotham. The edge of the neighborhood was not pretty. Abandoned buildings were dotted with homeless squatters, drug addicts, and if Damian’s memory served him right (which it did, of course), at least one meth lab within the past few years. His father was currently looking into a series of murders which the police had written off as standard gang-related violence - why that itself didn’t warrant police attention, Damian did not know - but which the Batman suspected was part of a larger trafficking conspiracy. Fortunately, Robin and Arsenal happened to be experts at dismantling trafficking conspiracies.

           The most recent murder had occurred in the basement of one such abandoned building. For some reason in this part of town the snow seemed whiter, purer, more undisturbed. This was unusual, and it put Damian on edge. As they approached the building, Damian lowered his voice and murmured, “Cover me. If we do get attacked-”

           “Kick their asses?”

           He glanced at her. She grinned. “Just make sure you get out in one piece,” he said.

           “You too, kid.”

           This time it bothered him too much to keep quiet. As they slipped into the basement beneath the house, he whispered at her, “You do know that you were born in January and my birthday is in September, so I am actually  _older_  than you-”

           “My dad says you don’t even have a birthday,” she whispered back at him, teasing, like a joke. “He says you’re a test tube baby and Dick had to fake your birth certificate.”

           This hit Damian like a ton of bricks. Although technically true, no one outside of Dick, Alfred, and  _maybe_  his father was supposed to know. The fact that Dick must have told Roy Harper, who then told his daughter, hurt him deeply. For one brief moment, he was frozen, stunned by the betrayal.

           And, as Damian should have known, one brief moment is all it takes.

           Panic in her voice - despite the situation, Damian felt a note of satisfaction:  _panic_ , how amateur - Lian shouted, “ _Robin!_ ” as something collided, hard, with the side of his head.

           In the darkness beneath the building, everything swam for one moment. Time seemed to slow. Someone knocked him forcefully to the ground, and then there was a knee on his chest, pressing him into the floor. Lian started to shout, then her voice cut out quickly, as if someone had knocked the breath out of her. Damian did not attempt to activate infrared in his mask’s lenses. Instead, he closed his eyes.

           He heard a small  _shink_ , the sound of a blade being drawn. Someone still pressed down on him, and he could hear Lian struggling for breath. Two men. Probably more. The blade suggested they didn’t have guns, but really, what kind trafficking ring in  _Gotham_  wouldn’t arm its lackeys? Then again, whoever it was they did not speak, which was unusual for your typical grunts. Maybe these guys were more experienced than Damian thought.

           Didn’t really matter. Either way, Damian was not about to allow this guy to keep him pinned for one more second.

           He kicked upwards, landing a blow on the man’s shoulder to get him off balance; then Damian hooked his leg around the man’s neck and wrenched sideways at the guy’s knee at the same time, throwing him off Damian and onto the ground with, at the very least, a bruising shoulder and a torn knee ligament. “Infrared lenses,” he said loudly, voice activating the lenses in his mask. Yes, he’d been right: there was another guy who currently had Lian in a chokehold, and a third man who was armed with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. This was a poor decision, as Damian really doubted that he could handle the gun’s recoil one-handed. To test this hypothesis, Damian held out his arms and he said, “Shoot me. I dare you.”

           Lian managed to choke out, “ _R-Robin!_ ” but he ignored her.

           “Go ahead,” said Damian once more, maybe with a little bit of bravado, showing off for the girl who was currently getting choked into near-unconsciousness.

           The man with the gun stared at Damian for a long moment. Faster than Damian had expected, he hurled the knife at Damian, who caught it and grinned and opened his mouth to quip, then barely had enough time to move at all before a gunshot went off, the blast so loud in the contained space it sounded like a firework-

           And suddenly Damian was on the ground, a searing pain in his right arm, the weight of another body atop of his. Three more shots went off, although they lacked the bang of a traditional gunpowder weapon, and then Lian twisted around on top of Damian and hissed, “You’re an  _idiot_ , has anyone ever told you that?”

           He blinked up at her. In her hand she held the tranq gun she’d used to take down all three of their attackers. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks for the assist.”

           “Don’t be too grateful,” she replied, gingerly inspecting his arm. “You still got shot.”

           “Just grazed me.”

           “Wouldn’t have even touched you if you hadn’t been such a show-off.”

           This stung, mostly because it was true. “I’m not a show-off,” he replied. “I was merely allowing you a chance to show me what you’re capable of.”

           One of the men she’d just tranqed gave a snorting little moan.

           “Kid,” she said, and dammit, she had to be doing it now because she  _knew_  it bothered him, “you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

           It was pretty tame as far as one-liners went, but she was also holding a firearm and kind of straddling his waist, and so he found himself blushing furiously, quickly extracting himself from under her.

           “By the way,” she said, getting to her feet and replacing her tranq gun in a thigh holster. She gestured at the unconscious grunt who’d had her in a chokehold. “Two points.”

           Damian dragged himself upright, one hand pressed against his bleeding arm. “Fine,” he said, “but I got shot. That has to be worth something. Five points.”

           “Negative five points,” she replied, removing the gun from the third guy’s hand. “When is getting shot ever a good thing?”

           “Depends,” said another voice; someone slipped into the room from just beyond the doorway, “on who’s getting shot.”

          If he hadn’t been so used to keeping his language clean in uniform, Damian would’ve sworn. Even in the semi-darkness the red helmet was visible, piercingly bright in the gloomy basement. “How long were you there?” Damian asked stonily.

          “Long enough to see you embarrass yourself in front of the lady,” Jason shot back. “You want to take care of these goons for me, Little Wing? I’ll go ahead and take Speedy here upstairs.”

          “Arsenal,” said Lian. Damian glanced at her, then did a double take: she was grinning ecstatically at Jason, pure delight in her eyes. “It’s Arsenal, actually!”

          “Good choice,” said Jay approvingly, with a little nod. “Robin, you got this?”

          Cautiously - he did not yet quite understand what was happening - Damian replied bluntly, “I won’t kill these men for you, if that’s what you mean.”

          “That’s not what I mean,” said Jason pointedly. “Will you please tie them up so I can deal with them later?”

          “ _Deal_  with them-?”

          “Yes,” answered Jason. “Which includes either beating the shit out of them until they tell me what they know, or dropping them off at the precinct. Both things you and the Big Guy do too, so don’t get your panties in a twist, OK?”

          “I hate that word,” said Lian.

          “Don’t get your heavy-duty reinforced Kevlar leggings in a twist, OK?” he corrected, immediately.

          Thickly, Damian looked in between Jason and Lian. “Do you know this guy?” he asked her, pointing at Jay, who then probably rolled his eyes underneath the helmet.

          “Arsenal,” said Jason, “you want to show the kid how it’s done?”

          Immediately Lian fished something out of her belt and leaned down to zip tie the hands of two of the men. Jason did the third, then said, “Good enough for now. Let’s take this upstairs.”

          “Upstairs” naturally meant the roof, which seemed oddly devoid of any and all snow. The only slight relief was that there was still very little wind, apart from a small breath of air behind Damian’s shoulder, as if someone had only just been there.

          Jason helped Lian onto the roof, and by the time Damian followed them up he was greeted by the very, very strange sight of two vigilantes in Gotham hugging in the light of the bright silvery moon above them. Damian blinked. His brain seemed to be processing the scene very slowly.

          “Oh, my God,” said Jason, pulling away to look Lian up and down. “Look at you. Baby’s all grown up and fighting bad guys.”

          “Where’ve you  _been?_ ” she demanded. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

          “Hold on,” began Damian. They ignored him.

          “Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” he answered, almost bashfully. He removed the helmet, revealing a gentle smile on his face as he watched her, something foreign behind the lenses of his mask. Damian narrowed his eyes, unable to place it. Adoration, maybe? “I don’t get out of Gotham a whole lot anymore, definitely not all the way out to Star City. Why don’t you visit  _me_ , huh?”

           Lian nodded at Damian. “We would, but  _his_  dad can get a little weird about other heroes on his turf.”

           With a knowing little whistle, Jason nodded. “Yeah, you don’t have to tell me that.”

           “What’s happening?” demanded Damian.

           Jason glanced up from Lian, clearly not happy that Damian so rudely required his attention. “Robin, listen. I’m pretty sure I have broken bones in at least eight different places, and I haven’t slept without the aid of prescription drugs for four years. Please just let me have this right now.”

           Damian said nothing for a moment. Then his gaze flickered away, as if giving them one tiny modicum of privacy.

           When he spoke again to Lian, Jason’s voice was different. Damian was positive he had never heard Jason Todd ever speak to him so gently. “How long’ve you been out here?” he asked her. “Show me what you got, anything worse than what you gave those guys downstairs? Is your dad around? And what the hell are you doing in Gotham? Hey,” he continued, and he lowered his voice slightly, “and I heard about that thing a few months ago. Congrats, kid. That was one hell of a job.”

           Lian beamed up at him. Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she said, “Yeah, well, that was kind of what convinced my dad to let me join the family business.”

           “If you’re talking about the human trafficking thing,” said Damian pointedly, “I was there too.”

           “Hey, Robin,” said Jason mildly, looking up. “Shut up for like, five seconds, OK?”

           Offended, Damian almost protested. But he fell silent when he saw the look on Lian’s face, the pure joy in her smile, full of happiness and love. Somewhere, somehow, seeing that look hurt him. He glanced away.

           “Nothing lethal,” Lian continued, taking out a few of her weapons to show Jason. “This is pretty cool though, my dad designed it, Kory helped too. It’s based on alien tech, like a taser except you can use it all you want and doesn’t cause any long term damage. Super useful.”

           “I bet,” he replied, inspecting the thing carefully. “Tell your dad he needs to get me one of these babies. He around?”

           “He’s at home,” answered Lian. “I’m just here for the night for, I don’t know, bonding or something with Robin.”

           “Team-building,” said Damian, interrupting the two of them. When Jason glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, Damian explained, “We’re considering re-forming the Teen Titans. This is a trial run to ensure we can work smoothly together.”

            “If this is a team-building exercise,” began Jason, “then how come it’s just you two? You can’t call it team if there’s just two of you. That’s a duo.”

            “It’s not just us,” Damian spat back

            Lian laughed. “Look,” she sighed, looking at Damian with a patina of pity ringing her eyes. “Your dad called my dad to ask if I could come play. Let’s be real, Robin, that’s all this is.”

            It wasn’t all this was, and it injured him that she would say so. Sensing Damian’s hurt, Jason moved on quickly. “So,” he began, “the Teen Titans, huh? I was on the Titans for a hot minute.”

            “Me too,” added Damian darkly.

            “Oh yeah?” asked Jason, sounding genuinely interested. “You get fired?”

            “I quit.”

            “Ah, you got me beat. I died.”

            There was an awkward sort of pause.

            Jason restarted, “OK, so! Since you’re around, you wanna help me out? There’s a trafficking deal going down in about an hour and I’m on stake-out ‘til they get here, at which point I am going to, excuse my French, kill the shit out of them.”

            Lian giggled, which disgusted Damian. “Red Hood, you can’t-”

            “That’s what we laypeople call a joke, Kid Wonder,” said Jay, without missing a beat. “Nobody’s getting killed, I gotta keep them alive so they can testify against their boss. Better than what they deserve, but hey, I’m a law-abiding citizen, what can you do?”

            Displeased with everything about this, Damian glowered at Jason. “Trafficking deal,” echoed Damian. “I believe Batman’s on that case.”

            Jason stopped and looked around, exaggerating the movement. “Welp,” he said, “doesn’t look like he’s here at the moment. You think we should wait for him?” The sincerity in Jason’s voice confused Damian, who suspected he was being made fun of. “Or should we just take care of this before any more crime can be committed, hm?”

            “Door number two please, Vanna,” sang Lian.

            Grinning, he pointed at her and said, “Wrong game show reference, but I like the enthusiasm. Let’s go.”

            He took them to a huge warehouse, all the while keeping up a running commentary on the background of the trafficking ring and the plan of attack. As they parkoured across the rooftops, Damian noticed suspiciously that Jason never quite took the lead, always matching pace with Lian who, being the smallest, was also the slowest. Once they were there, he showed them the little spot on the high roof he’d claimed for the stake-out, where there was a little blanket lain down, a periscope, a long-range sniper rifle lying on its side, several 100-calorie packs of Nabisco cookies, and a big steel thermos. Instantly Lian descended on the firearm in awe, holding it gingerly in her hands. Damian surveyed the place scornfully.

            “This isn’t very professional,” he sniffed, as Jason sat down on the blanket, grabbing the thermos. “What happens if someone finds you up here?”

            Jason shrugged, but didn’t answer.

            Luckily for him, Lian answered for him. “He shoots them,” she said, barely glancing up from the firearm before her. With a small sigh, Jason didn’t look around at her.

            “Thanks,” he said. “I was trying not to mention it in front of the baby bat, but thanks.”

            “Don’t call me that,” said Damian.

            “What, baby?” Jason looked at him for one moment, then shrugged. “Sure.”

            From above the gun, Lian called, “Rookie mistake, Robin. If you have to tell somebody you’re not a baby, you’re  _definitely_  a baby.”

            “Hey,” said Jay, reaching out to bat her hands away from the rifle. “Cut it out, I’m gonna need that later.”

            Her eyes lit up. “Can I shoot it?”

            “No,” answered Jason firmly. “You know how much shit your dad gave me when he found out I let you shoot one of those before?”

            “In his defense,” said Lian, her dark eyes still admiring the sleek black weapon beneath her hands, her touch as gentle as a caress, “I was nine years old at the time. You really shouldn’t let nine-year-olds handle weaponry as advanced as this.”

            “Ah, right, but fourteen-year-olds are OK.”

            “I’m thirteen,” she said, as he took hold of her arm and gently tugged her away. Nodding at Damian, she added, “He’s fourteen.”

            “And, yes, for the record,” Damian added, “I could absolutely handle that weapon. It isn’t even that advanced.” It looked like Jason was about to say something conciliatory, something to soothe Damian’s rough tone, but then the boy continued, “Also, what are you talking about, Arsenal? You didn’t have training as a child, did you?”

            “Yeah, I did,” she answered, finally abandoning the gun and settling down beside Jason. When she caught the look on Damian’s face, she added hastily, “I mean, not like you did, I guess, but I got a little bit.”

            Damian’s gaze slid to Jason. “From you?”

            Jay looked up at him, then blinked. “Oh,” he said, then he laughed. “Oh no, man, I babysat her once for a while when she was nine years old and super snotty and annoying. I didn’t do any training or anything.”

            “He did let me shoot a sniper rifle, though.”

            Damian looked at her. His expression was oddly unreadable – not quite hurt, but almost…hopeful?

            “Did you kill someone?” he asked, quietly.

            “No,” said Lian.

            There was another awkward pause. Damian looked away, and Jason cleared his throat. “Hey,” he said, holding up the thermos. “You guys want any coffee?”

            Lian gladly accepted, but Damian declined, citing the cup he had had earlier. “You can never get too much coffee,” sighed Lian, and Jason grinned at her and agreed, and he filled up the lid of the thermos for her and drank straight from the thing himself. Getting onto her knees, Lian peered through the periscope, then said something to Jason and nudged him, and they laughed together. It seemed very easy for them, which Damian resented. How dare Jason show up and take away what was meant to be a Robin-Arsenal team-up? And how dare Lian relate so easily to this man Damian didn’t even know?

            Grumpily, Damian also sat down beside them, just beyond the limit of the small square blanket Jay had put down. Maybe Damian should’ve accepted that coffee, maybe then they’d be laughing with him now. But he wasn’t supposed to have more than eight ounces of caffeine per day with his new medication, and his previous cup of coffee had tapped that out.

            While Damian sulked, Lian and Jason were catching up. “Did you ever hear from that guy again? That librarian, what was his name?”

            “Rob,” answered Jason, with a rueful grin. “I did not. Probably for the best. Hey, how’s Taco doing?”

            “She died,” sighed Lian.

            “Ah. That sucks.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Yo, Robin.” Jason looked around at him, and couldn’t conceal a small glance at the blanket, the spot closer to them where Damian was quite obviously not sitting. “You have a dog, right?”

            Damian didn’t answer right away. Then, noticing that Lian seemed vaguely interested, he relented. “Yes.”

            “What kind?” asked Lian.

            “Great Dane,” he answered. “We shouldn’t be talking about civilian matters so openly. We bring nothing into the field.”

            Jason stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. Damian’s jaw dropped slightly, a rush of shock and fury in his veins, and then Jay laughed and added, “Nah, don’t worry. You’re not the first kid your old man’s brainwashed. Kinda thinkin’ you’ll be the last, though. How old is he now?”

            “I’m not brainwashed,” Damian blurted out, in protest.

            “Well,” began Lian fairly, “not by Daddy, anyway.”

            This hit Damian hard, and he gaped at her.

            She blinked back at him innocently. “I can say that,” she said pointedly, placing a hand on her chest. “My mom’s a supervillain too.”

            “This is ridiculous,” said Damian, getting to his feet. “I’ve had quite enough of listening to you badmouth my father,” Jason wanted to point out that he hadn’t really badmouthed Bruce at all, he didn’t think, but he let the kid talk, “especially when  _your_ father is obviously a thousand times more irresponsible.”

            Lian’s expression turned severe and she too stood up, even though she was almost an entire foot shorter than Damian. “Oh yeah?” she replied, hands on her hips threateningly. “How do you figure that?”

            “Your father let you be alone with this… _lunatic_ ,” he gestured towards Jason, who glanced around for one second as if to ask,  _What, me?_ , “as a baby.”

            “I wasn’t a  _baby_ ,” said Lian, which Jason thought was violating her own rule, but whatever.

            “It was negligence, at best,” sniffed Damian, crossing his arms aggressively. “The man’s a trained assassin and stone-cold killer.”

            “So are you,” Lian shot back.

            “Hey,” said Jason, finally getting to his feet and holding up his hands to each of them. “Why don’t we all just chill out for one second-”

            Damian slapped Jason’s hand away and said, voice rising, “My father won’t even allow you near me  _now_ , Todd. How did you con this poor girl’s father into letting you take care of her? Did you kidnap her? What did you _do_  to her, you – you  _criminal_ , you  _lecher_ -”

            It was at that point that Jason Todd was knocked completely out of the way as Lian let out a roar and barreled straight into Damian, throwing him to the ground. Baring his teeth, Damian fought back, twisting underneath her and gaining enough momentum to flip them over and pin her to the roof. “You’re a  _jerk_ , Robin,” she hissed, scratching at his face.

            He chomped at her fingers until she retracted them quickly, glaring daggers at him. “I’m trying to  _help you_ , Arsenal.”

            She let out a high-pitched scream, struggling against his weight. “Do I  _look like_  I need your help!”

            “I have you pinned!” he shouted above her screaming. “Of  _course_  you look like-”

            Lian rammed the top of her head hard into Damian’s face, and he let out a yelp of pain and let her go, hands immediately going to his bleeding nose, and Lian lunged at him but then someone bigger than both of them took hold of the two of them, hard and rough, and Jason bellowed, “ _ENOUGH!_ ”

            Yanking at collar of their uniforms, he separated them. Damian and Lian sneered at each other, but did not quite fight back against Jason’s touch.

            “Jesus H. Christ, kids,” said Jay, shaking his head. “You do realize we’re on a stake-out, right? And that, as such, it’s a sensitive operative that requires stealth? So you two crying and screaming and trying to kill each other on the roof here isn’t gonna help?”

            “I wasn’t trying to  _kill_  her,” Damian shot back.

            “Yeah,” added Lian. “If I was, he’d be dead.”

            “Shut up, Arsenal!”

            “ _You_  shut up, Robin!”

            “You’re the one who attacked me!”

            “Hey, hey, hey!” said Jason, shaking the both of them. “Robin, calm down. She was just protecting my honor, that’s all. You wanna fight someone, fight me.”

            “Fight  _me_ ,” insisted Lian, but Jason just shook her a little bit and tried not to laugh.

            For another moment, Lian and Damian stared at each other, but neither of them moved. “OK,” said Jay. “I’m gonna let go of you now. First one to throw a punch gets a very disappointed call from me to their dad.”

            “My father won’t listen to you,” Damian shot at him. “He doesn’t care what you say.”

            The expression on Jason’s face didn’t flicker, but the night somehow got even chillier, a note of iciness that hadn’t been there before. Jason let them both go. “Yeah,” he said. “Well. That’s not new.”

            Returning to his seat on the blanket, Jason glanced once more out the periscope. Lian narrowed her eyes at Damian, then pointed at her own eyes with two fingers, then at him. He rolled her eyes, and, angrily, she flipped him the bird.

            “Nobody’s asking you to stay, Robin,” said Jason, without looking around. “If your dad doesn’t want you around me, fine. But this is my turf. You don’t get to show up and make a fool outta yourself.”

            “I didn’t know you’d be here,” Damian shot back. “Batman said he’d told you about tonight, I’d assumed you’d be off hiding whatever criminal activity you’re up to now.”

            At this, Jason did look back at Damian. “Hold on,” he said. “Your dad didn’t tell me anything.”

            Damian did not believe him. “He said he’d alerted you-”

            “Oh, Christ,” muttered Jason, shaking his head. “I bet he told Scarlet.”

            “Scarlet?” echoed Lian.

            “The poor girl doesn’t even in live Gotham anymore,” said Jason, glancing up to the sky as if beseeching the heavens, “and the man still thinks she’s the only way to reach me. Honestly, what the hell goes through his head? I’m on Oracle’s network! I worked with Red Arrow, for Chrissake’s, and he’s in the Justice League!

            Spotting an opportunity to correct Jay, Damian leaned in and pointed out, “Red Arrow is  _reserve_ -”

            “So what?” asked Lian sharply, shooting a glare Damian’s way. “And Batman’s not even  _on_  the League.”

            “That’s his choice!”

            “Yeah, because of  _you_.”

            Another sore spot. It infuriated him, how easy it was for her to prick at him. “Gotham is a full-time job, and he has a company to run as well, remember?”

            Jason let out a whistle and reached out to take Damian’s shoulder; Damian pulled away from him, unwilling to be touched. “Let’s not get into specifics, OK? Didn’t you just say no civilian talk in the field?”

            Damian didn’t answer this, still glowering at Lian.

           For a while longer, they waited. As Damian was beginning to get antsy, nerves collecting in his fists and legs until he had difficulty staying still, anxious to punch something, Jason finally perked up slightly, peering down at the warehouse.

           “Looks like things are about to get started,” he muttered. “OK.” He turned back to Lian and Damian. “I’m gonna go in first, distract them and take some fire,” he said. “Robin, there’s gonna be some heavy-duty security on the cargo, so I need you there.”

           “Drugs?” asked Damian.

           “Arms,” he answered. “Arsenal,” he gestured at the periscope, “see the ugly bald dude?”

           Lian looked through the scope. “The white guy?”

           “Naturally. He’s in charge of this operation. I need him tied up, scared, and preferably just roughed up enough to consider talking. Try that taser thing, that should work.”

           “Conscious though, right?”

           “Right. And no bruises on the face, if you can avoid it. Prosecutors find it easier that way.”

           “How come she gets the important job?” demanded Damian, and Lian smirked at him.

           “I’m sorry,” said Jason, genuinely taken aback. “I didn’t realize making sure your teammates didn’t get shot the fuck up wasn’t important enough for you.”

           Lian held out her hand. “Swear jar,” she said.

           “When we’re done,” he promised her. “Everybody ready?”

           They nodded, and Jason said, “Awright,” and put his hand in, but Damian and Lian only looked at him disdainfully, so he said, “Nobody? Nope? OK,” and retracted his hand. “Play it safe, kiddies,” he said, and then he winked at them and leapt feet-first off the roof.

           As he had intended, he drew most of their fire his way, laughing and jeering at them like only the Red Hood could. Lian drew her weapons, charging the taser. “Your chance to catch up,” she said.

           Damian glanced at her. “With what?”

           “Points,” she responded. “You’re thirteen points behind.”

           This seemed wrong. “Two points,  _maybe_.”

           “Thirteen,” she repeated. “It was five, but then I got out of that chokehold and took down those three guys. And one of them had a gun.”

           In his head, Damian quickly did the calculations. “That still leaves an extra point.”

           “Yeah,” she said, and she grinned at him. “I managed to knock  _Robin_  off his feet. Twice. You can’t tell me that isn’t worth one teensy point.”

           Although it galled him to admit, she was right. “Just do your job,” he said, and then he followed Jason off the roof, and she snickered and leapt after him.

           At first, as always, everything went smoothly. While Jason dealt with the bulk of the goons, Damian silently took down the big guns guarding the shipment one by one, rendering them incapacitated with nothing more than his fists - and, once, the escrima sticks Dick had left him, but he didn’t like to use those because they tended to make him feel overconfident, tricked his muscle memory into thinking he had a partner there with him, someone with whom he was in complete sync, someone he could trust.

           He heard someone move from behind him, and he used the leverage from the crates before him to jump up and flip backwards, gauntlet spikes outward - then he fumbled the flip midair and ended up on the ground, cape over his head.

           Fuming, he got to his feet. “Arsenal,” he hissed; she stood there grinning at him, leaning on her bow casually. “I could’ve  _hurt_  you-”

           “You could’ve,” she said fairly. “And then maybe you would’ve gotten that point back, too.” She paused; behind her, Damian saw the man Jason had pointed out, tied up and groaning in pain. “But you didn’t.”

           “Hey!” called Jason, from a ways away, where he was busy tying up various henchmen. “Brave and Bold!”

           Lian waved at  him, and Damian glanced around in confusion. Leaning in towards Lian he asked, “Does he mean us?”

           She ignored him. “Take a look around for me, will ya?” called Jason. “I’m gonna call this in.”

           “This is Batman’s mission,” Damian replied. “I’ll contact him, then we’ll preserve the evidence until he gets here.”

           Blowing a loud farting noise from her mouth, Lian turned to a containers, broke off the lock, then swung a door open. Inside it was dark. “You always follow daddy’s orders, Robin?” she shot over her shoulder at him. “Or just when you’re being contrary?

           He began, “I’m not  _being_  contr-” but then stopped before he could finish, at the smug look in her eye.

           From a holster on her thigh, Lian produced what looked like a weapon but what turned out to be a flashlight. Clicking it on, she peered into the darkness of the container. Crates. “Robin,” she said, calling him in. “Crack this open for me.”

           “Can’t you?” he murmured snidely, but obliged all the same, wrenching the lid off of one of them. Lian’s light illuminated a mess of contraptions, of gadgets and technology. No firearms to speak of, at least none that Damian could identify.

           Very carefully, he picked one of the odd metal pieces up, inspected it carefully. “What is it?” asked Lian.

           “I don’t know,” responded Damian truthfully. “Very lightweight. Must be self-powered, whatever it is. Could be controlled externally, like a drone.” He narrowed his eyes behind his mask. “But this is a small-arms trafficking ring, not high tech. And there’s no corresponding equipment for surveillance.” Damian paused, then looked up at Lian heavily. “So who’s it for?”

           Lian kicked the crate. “You,” she said, “probably.”

           He stared at her for just one moment, then glanced down to the spot she’d kicked. Stamped across the crate in big block letters were the words:  _WAYNETECH_.

           “What?” he asked, and it sounded as if there was actual distress in his voice. “That doesn’t…how would…” He turned the device over in his hands once more. It had a vaguely cylindrical shape, almost like a gauntlet. “But what  _is_ it?” he asked. “How do we turn it on?”

           “We  _want_  to turn on the mysterious device being trafficked by illegal arms dealers?” asked Lian dubiously. “Sheesh, it’s like you’re looking to get blown up.”

           All of the sudden, it went warm in Damian’s hands, and a flash of yellow lightning sparked in the darkness, causing Lian to cry out in surprise and Damian to drop the thing. Then, instantly, they both froze: at the same moment there was a  _bang_  on the outside of the container, like a body colliding against the sheeted metal. There was a pale little groan, muffled inside the container. Lian and Damian met one another’s gaze, silently confirming what they had both heard. He motioned to the weapon at her waist, then to himself, then the entrance to the container. She frowned.  _What?_  she mouthed.

           He rolled his eyes. “Cover me,” he whispered.

           Sinking into the night, Damian headed towards the opening of the container, where the sodium yellow light of a streetlight lengthened shadows, deepening the darkness. Stealthily, silently, just before Lian with her bow raised, Damian crept outside the container and peered through the frozen night.

           When he paused, Lian peeked out after him. Then she said, “Oh,” and laughed and lowered her bow, pushing past Damian, who reached out after her and hissed her name. She shook him off. “It’s fine, Robin,” she said. “You had to meet her sometime.”

           Cautiously, Damian hung back as Lian approached the slim body on the ground. As she did so, the girl in red and white stirred. Kneeling down, Lian said, “Hey! You OK?”

           The girl looked around, then put a hand to her head. “Yeah,” she said, staring at the metal of the container before her. “That usually works.”

           Faster than Damian could blink, she was on her feet again. Concerned, Lian asked, “You couldn’t phase through? That’s not good.”

           “Eh.” The girl shrugged. “My powers fluctuate. Been on the fritz lately, think it’s because I’m finally hitting puberty. At five years old.”

           “Excuse me?” asked Damian, brow knit in confusion.

           “Robin,” said Lian, looking back at him. “This is Impulse. Looks like this is turning into a team-building exercise after all, huh?”

           For a long moment, Damian didn’t move. Then he strode forward slightly and held out his hand. “Pleasure,” he said.

           Iris West, Impulse, giggled. “All mine,” she said, taking his hand.

           For one brief moment, they met each other’s gaze, and then Lian glanced between them and said, “Wow. Ten points to Impulse.”

           With a flash of irritation, Robin glanced at her. “What for?”

           “I may have knocked you down,” she sighed, nodding at Iris, “but  _she_  totally bowled you over.”

           There might have been a slight blush on his face as Damian began, “I’m  _not_ -”

           But before he could finish, another  _bang_  echoed around the container as Jason dropped on top. “Oh, hello,” he said. “Who’s the new kid?”

           Instantly, Iris was on top of the container, right in front of him. “Impulse, fastest kid alive,” she said. “At your service.” Then she added, “Unless you’re a bad guy.” She turned to Lian and Damian, pointed at Jason. “He’s not a bad guy, right?”

           “Yes,” said Damian, at the same time that Lian shook her head and called, “Naw.”

           Jason wondered aloud, “What is  _with_  Gotham and attracting fresh blood?”

           And then, from behind them all, another voice heaved, “Well said,” and the blast of a gun went off, and Jason called, “ _Robin-!_ ”

           When Damian turned around, there was a girl standing in between him and the man with the gun. Her tightly-curled red-brown hair and her deep, dark skin contrasted sharply with the gross white of the snowy slush on the ground and the starkness of her own light uniform. In between gloved thumb and forefinger, she delicately held a single bullet.

           Impulse smiled at the man, then said, “So  _you’re_  the bad guy?” and without waiting for a response she flickered forward in a rush of motion too quick to see, knocked him unconscious, and tossed the weapon to Lian, who caught it with both hands.

           Appearing once more just in front of Jason, who had drawn his weapons already, she said, “Sorry to steal your thunder! Thought it’d be easier just to get that over with while we were ahead.”

           Humiliation mixing with anger in his gut, Damian began, “I can  _dodge_  a bullet-”

            _Blam_. With a shout of pain, Damian clutched his arm - the opposite side than had been grazed earlier. In pain and disbelief, he gaped at Lian, who shrugged and put the pistol away. “That’s two for two, Robin,” she said. “Doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.”

           “You  _shot_  me-!”

           “Oh, boy,” sighed Iris. “If this is how you two are going to lead, then I’m all for voting GL team captain.”

           “No need,” said Damian, clutching his arm; he seemed genuinely, furiously angry, in a way that Jason had not yet seen. “If this -  _team_ ,” he spat the word with derision, as if he had to split his lip and bleed it from his mouth, “is going to be run like  _this_ , then I want no part in it. Good luck forming a Titans without a Robin,  _children_.”

           He turned and stalked away; as he passed the man who had shot earlier, he kicked him emphatically in the ribs.

           Hurriedly, Jason clambered down from atop the container. “Hey,” he said to Lian, quickly reaching out for a one-armed hug as he used his other hand to reholster his weapons. “It was good seeing you kiddo, but I should go. Gotta make sure the little bird doesn’t bleed out.”

           “I barely grazed him,” she said stubbornly.

           “You shot him,” said Jason plainly. “He’s a kid. That wasn’t funny, and if his father or your father were here, they’d both be pretty disappointed in you right now, I bet.” He glanced at Iris and added, “Your dad too probably, but I don’t know him real well, so.”

           “Wait a minute,” said Iris suspiciously, “aren’t you the one who asked Speedy to be your sidekick?”

           With an exaggerated sigh, Jason muttered, “She just  _loves_  telling people that story. Anyway ladies, I’m out. Get home safe.”

           He took off, leaving Lian steaming with resentful anger and Iris holding onto her friend’s arm, glancing in between her and the spot where Damian had just been standing.

           It didn’t take him all that long to catch up with Damian, despite the fact that the kid was exceptionally good at making sure no trace of his blood made it anywhere off his body. This was, Jason suspected, something Bruce had taught him: leave no DNA behind, no chance of cloning, no chance of identification, no nothing. Damian’s little voice rang in his ears.  _We bring nothing into the field_.

           That was how Batmans were made, and Jason did not want the baby brat to become another Batman. Maybe this was because of the fact that the width of his mouth, the arch of his brow, the curl of his hair all so reminded Jason of Talia - but also, he thought almost indignantly, it had nothing to do with that. The boy was fourteen years old. Wanting to protect a fourteen year old kid was not something which required justification.

           On a rooftop heading towards the wealthier side of town - coincidentally, near an alley in which he had once almost died (for the second time), after the end of that summer with Lian - he found Damian crouching on the corner of the roof, as if waiting. Jason watched him warily; he moved slowly and made a lot of noise, so Damian knew he was coming. Still staying several feet back, he asked aloud, “You OK?”

           Damian didn’t immediately look around. “Go away,” he said gruffly.

           This was such a childish sentiment, Jason could’ve laughed. “Hey,” he said. “My second-favorite safehouse is just a few blocks from here. I can stitch you up if you want.”

           “No thanks,” said Damian stonily.

           “I can drive you home,” Jason offered. “Or at least back to your bike. Where’d you leave it?”

           Damian didn’t answer.

           Jason added, “Or, I could just stand here silently until you leave, and follow you home to make sure you don’t pass out.”

           “I won’t pass out,” replied Damian sharply. He sounded hurt, and not just because of the two minor bullet wounds.

           “Well, fine.” This was the only blow he could think of that might land, so he said, “But I doubt your dad’ll be happy when he founds out you bled all over the place. Just let me patch you up so you don’t get in trouble, OK?”

For a little too long, Damian still did not move. Then he glanced around, his gaze glinting and unnatural behind the mask’s lenses. He said: “I carry my own medical supplies.”

           “How ‘bout if somebody shot you in the stomach too, would you insist on patching yourself up then?”

           Damian watched him. There was an odd observational note about his gaze, something that betrayed the boy’s genuine lack of understanding. It was not an expression that the Batman would ever deign to make. It was too obvious, too readable, too human. Jason thought about what he just said, and felt ill.

           “I’m not gonna shoot you,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

           “You thought about it,” said Damian.

           No, he hadn’t. “Yeah, well, maybe. Doesn’t matter what we think, Damian, only what we do. Or has nobody told you that yet?”

           The boy stiffened slightly. “No names,” he said.

           “I hate that bullshit,” said Jason. “Makes you forget we’re all real people underneath the mask. You’re not Robin, not really, just like I’m not Red Hood and your old man isn’t Batman, no matter how much he likes to think he is.”

           “I am Robin,” said Damian bluntly.

           “So was I,” replied Jason.

           There was a silence.

           Damian asked, “If I come with you, will you let me take some of your medical supplies?”

           “Sure,” answered Jason. “Don’t see why, though. Daddy can’t afford more?”

           When Damian did not reply, the answer dawned on Jason. He didn’t want Bruce to find out he’d gotten hit. Of course. Every Robin had always dreaded that tense glance of disappointment, the fierce condemnation masquerading as paternal concern. It was terrible. It was damaging, Jason knew that much, but Bruce could not and would not admit what injury he did to his children. Jason could still hear his voice.  _Not good enough_.

           If Damian Wayne, perfect genetic specimen, raised since birth to be the ultimate warrior, was not good enough for Bruce, then that confirmed Jason’s suspicion that nothing ever would be. He wished, suddenly and powerfully, that Damian would never have to go home at all. But he knew the kid wouldn’t understand.

           “Sure,” said Jason again. He headed towards the edge of the roof and gestured for Damian to follow him. “Come on.”

           The safehouse wasn’t much, but it was something. Jason discarded his helmet as soon as they got in, and he locked the door behind Damian, who glanced around in what was not entirely distaste. Although relatively small, Jason had always kind of thought it felt a little like the Penthouse in Wayne Tower. From the reluctant sheen of comfort in Damian’s eye, Jason suspected the kid noticed it too.

           As Jason tore off his mask, and unloaded most of the weapons he’d packed onto his suit, Damian slowly surveyed the room, trailing his fingers along the wall. It wasn’t pristine - there was a layer of dust on the places Jason never touched, and probably a trash can in the bathroom that needed to be taken out - but it wasn’t a mess either. He wasn’t here enough to make it a mess. Without quite moving, Jason watched the back of Damian’s head as the other boy moved, very slowly, absolutely silently.

           “Was that true?” he asked, abruptly.

           Jason only watched him warily. “Was what true?”

           “About you and Arsenal.” He paused. “Lian.”

           Jason shrugged. “Yeah. It was about the time Bruce came back. Dick came and visited us for a night, his head was bandaged pretty bad. Never did ask how he got that.”

           “Hurt shot him,” said Damian.

           “Who’s Hurt?”

           “Does it matter?”

           It didn’t. Not really.

           Jason’s medical kit was in the bathroom, which was tiny. Still, Jay put down the toilet lid and had Damian sit down, then knelt beside him. The first shot had only barely touched him, and Lian had been expertly careful with hers: they were shallow wounds, and Lian’s bullet had an exit wound so there was nothing to extract. Methodically, he cleaned the wounds. “You want stitches?”

           “Yes,” said Damian.

           “You don’t really need ‘em,” said Jason, inspecting the cut.

           “It makes it easier.”

           “You mean it makes it easier for you to hide this from Bruce.”

           “Maybe.”

           Jason shrugged. “I can respect that.”

           A little bit of silence. Then Damian asked, “Why are you doing this?”

           When Jason glanced up to meet Damian’s dark gaze, there was a small crease on his brow. “Why am I stitching up an injured kid?” When Damian didn’t say anything, he added, “I’m a superhero, didn’t you hear?”

           “No you’re not,” said Damian.

           At this, Jason tore his gaze away, eyes flickering down to stitching Damian’s arm.

           “Last time I was shot, it was your fault,” said Damian.

           In Jason’s belly, a familiar coil of bitterness stirred. Barely more than a murmur, he asked, “What are you talking about?”

           “Flamingo,” said Damian. “He shot me in the spine seventeen times. My mother had to grow me a new one.”

           “No, she didn’t,” said Jason patiently.

           “Yes,” said Damian, and his voice was just slightly too loud, “she did.”

           “No,” repeated Jason, “she didn’t. Talia has entire compounds devoted to keeping replacement organs for you. She didn’t have to  _grow_  you a new spine, she already had like three on hand.”

           Damian pulled away from Jason so suddenly that the surgical thread in his wound, halfway stitched up, was pulled taut. Ever the professional, Damian did not wince; inwardly, Jason did for him.

           With fire burning in his eyes, Damian demanded, “How do you know that?”

           Jason blinked at him, hands held up empty, as if surrendering. He didn’t quite know what to say.  _I know your mother_ , he thought.  _I know her lairs and her compounds and I thought those floating organs were all very grotesque, until I found out what they were for. I think I saw you, a baby in a biotube, and I didn’t do anything. I thought you were an experiment. I didn’t think you were real._

 _I should have taken you_ , thought Jason, meeting the boy’s steely gaze.  _Should have saved you._

           He deflected. “You think I’m responsible for Flamingo shooting you to hell?” he asked, gently coaxing Damian back, returning to the wound. “If Dick hadn’t been stomping around like an ogre in a Kevlar ballgown, maybe he would’ve had your back when you needed it. Besides, you should be thanking me for getting your mom down there as quick as I did.”

           Again, this clanged against Damian’s heart, like alarm bells, like chains in a cage. “What?”

           “What?” echoed Jason, pulling the thread through a final time, closing up the wound. “You didn’t think Dick called her, did you? He can’t stand the woman.”

           This much was true, and it had been true ever since Dick’s first meeting with Talia more than fifteen years ago. But as a general rule he had tried to keep his dislike under wraps as much as possible around the new Robin, for the kid’s sake. A terrible, no-good, evil woman she may be, but she was still his mother, and Dick had no desire to make Damian feel any worse than he already did.

           But, not for nothing, Damian was a child genius. He could recognize that expression of pinched distaste on Dick’s face whenever anyone brought her up, and he had seen that blaze of hatred and rage on those rare nights when Damian had told him something, anything, about his childhood.

           Once - only once - Dick hadn’t been able to contain it.  _I hope you hate her_ , he’d said.  _I hope you hate her for what she did to you_.

           At first, Damian had not known what he meant. The silence had been long, and he could tell that Dick regretted his words as soon as he said them. Damian turned the thought over and over again in his head, trying to figure it out, trying to decode the puzzle everyone else seemed to have already solved. Cautiously, slowly, considering his words, Damian finally replied.

            _Do you hate my father?_  he’d asked.

           Dick had nothing to say to that, which was an indication of just how deeply this cut him.

           Once more, Jason wiped away blood and dabbed disinfectant on the wound. “Anyway,” he said. “Hang in there, kid. Hey,” he continued, wiping his hands on a damp rag. “You got all the legal stuff figured out, right?” At Damian’s expression, he continued, “You know, birth certificate and everything. You’re legally Bruce’s?”

           “His son,” said Damian, his voice hard, “yes.”

           “Cool,” said Jason, with a little grin. “That makes us brothers.”

           Damian blinked at him. “What?” he asked. “No.”

           “Yeah. He adopted me when I was a kid.”

           “No,” said Damian.

           “Yes,” replied Jason. “The papers are still there somewhere. I heard some lawyer subpoenaed them a couple years ago.”

           “That’s not true,” said Damian.

           Jason paused, taken aback at his insistence. “You seem pretty sure about that.”

           Behind Damian’s eyes, he seemed wary. “My father thinks very highly of family,” he said, which was untrue in Jason’s opinion but he didn’t immediately argue. “I doubt he’d talk about his son the way I’ve heard him talk about you.”

           For some reason, despite years of hardening his heart to Bruce’s ever-worsening injuries, this hurt Jason. “Oh yeah?” he asked, doing his best to mask this pain. “And how does he talk about me?”

           Damian watched him. “Like you’re still dead,” he said.

           Jason didn’t say anything. Then he got up, lifted off his knee and dropped the rag in the sink.

           He turned to face Damian, crossing his arms and leaning against the ceramic sink. “And how does he talk about you?” he asked.

           This question seemed to surprise Damian. Running a hand over his newly-sutured wound, he answered, “He says I’m competent. I do think he knows that Robin’s never been finer than-”

           “Not Robin,” interrupted Jason. “What does he say about Damian?”

           The kid stared up at him. He had nothing to say.

           “That’s Bruce’s problem,” said Jason. He shook his head. “He wants to believe he’s Batman so badly, he forgets the rest of us are more than just bodies in costumes. Hey, Damian. Kid. When your dad is wearing that cowl, he doesn’t see you, he sees a red vest and yellow cape. That’s never gonna change. I died wearing that cape, and you know what he did?”

           Damian didn’t answer.

           “He put it up in the Cave,” said Jason simply. “Like that’s all I was. And when I came back, and I wasn’t what he wanted me to be anymore, you know what he did then?” Again, Damian said nothing. “He kept it up,” said Jason, and he knew that his voice was rising but he couldn’t stop himself. “That glass display case is still there, memorializing the kid Bruce wanted to tell himself I was. Well. Maybe I was that kid, maybe I wasn’t. I don’t think it really matters. I’m here, I’m back, I have been for years, and he still won’t take down that damn case.”

           There was a moment of silence.

           “You might be Bruce’s son,” said Jason. His voice was quiet once more. “But you’re Batman’s soldier. You even more than the rest of us, Damian.”

           In the small bathroom, Damian looked up at Jason for a long, unmoving moment. Then, abruptly, he dropped his gaze, reached up, and gently peeled the mask off of his face.

           “You’re not what I expected you to be,” said Damian.

           “You’re exactly what I expected you to be,” replied Jason. “Skilled, fast, brilliant. So smart it’s scary. You got the best of both of them, kiddo.”

           Neither of them spoke. Jason got the feeling Damian, who glanced around them glumly, had something else to say, so he waited.

           Finally, the kid admitted, “I shouldn’t have been so rude to Lian.”

           Jason shrugged. “She’s a tough cookie. She’ll recover.”

           “I don’t want to end up like Batman,” said Damian, suddenly. “Like my father.”

           “Don’t worry,” said Jason seriously. “If you ever get to that point, I promise I’ll shoot you for real. Or more likely, Lian will before I get a chance. She likes you. I can tell.”

           Once more, color tinted Damian’s cheeks and he would not meet Jason’s gaze. “I like her,” he confessed.

           It took Jason a moment to realize what he was saying. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. No. She’s…she’s not gonna be interested in you, kid. Sorry.”

           Damian took this, surprisingly, in stride. He met Jason’s gaze for one second, then asked: “You think Impulse liked me?”

           Jason laughed, then patted Damian on the shoulder and headed out of the bathroom. “Join the team,” he said. “Give it time. Sometimes being just friends is better than the alternative, take it from me.”

           “Right,” said Damian, following Jason out, “because an undead ex-Robin drug lord vigilante is so qualified to hand out romantic advice.”

           Maybe this was true. Jason wasn’t really a hundred percent sure what was going on between Tam Fox and him anymore, whether it was still just Taco Bell and Netflix on slow nights, or whether the little touches, the lingering glances, the the hungry gazes they tried not to let the other see meant something more. It probably wasn’t good for her, to get involved with him. But Jason had been pretty damn selfless his whole life, he liked to think, even to the point of dispensing wise advice to this kid who’d started out hating him. He deserved this one thing.

           “You should head home,” said Jason. “Alfred’s probably waiting up for you.”

           Replacing the mask around his eyes, Damian nodded. “I’ll send someone to pick up the evidence for inspection tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t know what those devices were, but they had my father’s name on them, and I’m going to find out why.”

           “That’s the spirit,” said Jason. “Godspeed, Robin-the-fifth. You’re a good kid.”

           “Thank you,” answered Damian, with surprisingly more humility than Jason had expected. “You’re not a terrible man.”

           Bashfully, Jason grinned. “I guess that’s about as good as I’m gonna get, huh?”

           “Just about,” agreed Damian. “Thank you for stitching me up.”

           “Least I could do.”

           “Don’t tell my father about this.”

           “Do I look like I’d snitch to Batman?”

           Damian grinned, which was an odd sight. He held out a hand, which Jason took firmly.

           “I’ll tell him to take down the memorial case,” said Damian.

           Jason shrugged.

           Damian left after that, heading back into the night to retrieve his motorcycle and ride home in the cold.

—-

           In the morning, Jason sent word that the containers at the warehouse were all empty. Superman and Animal Man both got back to Bruce, agreeing that their son and daughter respectively should be part of the team. Via his direct commlink to Lian, Damian set up a date and time for the eight of them to all meet at the Tower for the first time. In his nervous excitement, Damian forgot all about the glass case in the Cave.


End file.
